Short Skirt
by Adamina
Summary: "The skirt." Usagi gritted, glaring sharp and heatedly. "That's what's wrong with it." For comfort, she huddled in with the hunched clusters, rubbing away the chill the ice-cream gave her.


_AN: I would like to thank Lavvy and Starsea for editing these next five drabbles! ^.^ Absolutely awesome work, guys._

Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon. I swear.

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><p>"Oh. My. God. Look at those legs."<p>

"What? Where—holy! Jeez, Rei. How did you get this?"

A roll of the eyes. "Makoto. It's just a magazine."

"It's not just a magazine," the brunette hissed, leaning her body in towards the group. As though she were a gofer, her head poked up, glancing around before perching back in its original position. "Men," she stated, "go crazy when they see this magazine."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Hey! You can't fight facts."

"She's right, you know, Rei." Ami interrupted, her quiet gaze moving from book to pyro. "You _can't_ fight facts."

Rei raised her eyes to the Arcade's stucco ceiling. Her hands itched to tug at her hair, but instead she settled with another, "Oh my god…" and simply buried her face in them.

"Still," Minako supplemented and twisted her head eagerly, angling for a better look at the page. Not a reserved bone in her body, her tongue stuck out between her lips in concentration. "Those _are_ great legs."

"Just keep it out of sight, will ya?" Jade eyes glanced towards the counter and caught stormy blue ones peering right back at her –or rather, her table—before quickly averting.

Minako stared at Makoto thoughtfully, just for a few seconds, chewing on the side of her lip before turning back to the page. "However…" her lips nibbled, "they aren't…perfect."

Rei blinked. "Not perfect?"

"Something's wrong with them." Red bow bouncing, the blonde gave a certified nod. "I just… I can't put my finger on it."

"The skirt."

Blue, green, and violet (and probably all the colors of the rainbow if that was genetically possible) alike centered on the odango'd girl munching happily on her double chocolate chip sundae, whipping cream adorning her nose and rose flushing her cheeks. Her spoon ladled another scoop, placing it not a little eagerly between her lips, before turning her own eyes back towards her friends.

"Usagi-chan, I didn't know you were interested in this sort of stuff." Ami said.

"I'm more surprised of the fact that she could hear us above the sound of her eating." Lazy and a bit wicked, Rei leaned on her elbows as her hair swayed in taunting swings.

"The skirt." Usagi gritted, glaring sharp and heatedly. "That's what's wrong with it." For comfort, she huddled in with the hunched clusters, rubbing away the chill the ice-cream gave her.

"I don't know." Minako gave the picture another look, scrutinizing. "I think it's pretty. Silk, y'know. From Thailand."

"Ooh. A whole China sea."

"You know, Ami. Sarcasm isn't attractive."

"No, it's not the way it looks." Usagi frowned. "It's the length."

"The length? I don't see what the length has to- Oh, wait." The corners of Rei's lips twitched, spanned. "I see what you're saying."

"It's not short enough."

A sputtering, a sort of resounding choke stammered not far from the five fourteen year olds as an ebony-haired man shot an incredulous look –not the first—in their direction.

"Hmm…" Makoto tapped a finger to her lips. "It is covering more than it should. You can't really see the upper leg that well, can you?"

"Not even a little bit!"

"You could almost say that it was duration deficient."

Minako blinked, then let a smile spread her lips in a sympathetic beam that challenged a winter sun, one that perhaps a baby-sitter would give to a four year old playing dress up. Or an Ami speaking Dictionary Language. "I think I'll stick with 'not short' and call it a day."

"If I had stems like that," Rei began, flicking her jet black hair over her shoulder and absently crossing her legs. "I'd show 'em off more. Maybe shine 'em up."

"Tone them." Her ponytail bounced with her as Makoto nodded in absolute agreement. "Maybe dress them in a shorter skirt."

"A see-through skirt!" Minako clasped her hands together excitedly. "No man can resist a see-through skirt."

"If I had legs like that," awe thickened her voice, and as she leaned back in her chair, the sun's heat permeating her every feature to brilliance, she slipped on foot from her shoe, rubbed it against her calve before stretching it out in front of her, "I would dress them in nothing at all."

"Usagi!"

Her hand fumbled on the table at the sharp voice, knocking the spoon from its dish so it tumbled first to the surface, and then to the ground. A shadow played over her, tall and domineering, and it resembled the darkness the hard voice contained absolutely. She knew who it was before she turned around. His presence had been brimming on the edge of her mind since the moment he had come in, sat down, taken off that ridiculously green jacket and ordered his ridiculously caffeinated coffee.

Still, even in all her awareness of him, her heart leaped in her throat and her body jerked just before her head spun to meet her greatest arch-nemesis of the entire world.

Mamo-chan.

His stature towered over her, a grim frown creasing his gorgeous features in a way she'd never seen before, not even in their ritual fights. His jaw was squared to the edge of fury, his lips inventing an entirely new way to scowl without actually scowling at all, and his eyes were alight with the friction of anger and…

Usagi blinked. Protectiveness?

"Usagi," he said again, voice deeper than usual and thrumming the strings of her vocal cords, "you will not show you legs off in that manner." His eyes remained still, stained on hers.

"I…won't?"

"No. You won't. In fact," he caught her hand in his, seized her to her full four-foot-nine-inch height and, as if her heart couldn't hammer against her ribs any harder, smoothed her own school skirt down to _its_ full twenty-six-inch length, "you won't show your legs off at all."

"I…"

"This is not up for negotiation, Usak—i." He cursed, gritting his teeth further at the stumble. "Just because you want a boyfriend doesn't make it right to negate every other amazing aspect about you. To show off your possessions as if it should matter." He shook her even as his thumbs caressed her over-sensitized skin. He shook his head, eyes narrowing at her stunned look.

"Amazing…?"

He glared. His hands contracted on her arms and he was suddenly afraid they might never let go. "Amazing." His teeth gritted further, finally gaining enough strength to push away and stuff his fists into his pockets. "Is that what you think amazing guys want? Legs? Not every guy wants it, Usagi. Some of us don't want—_I_ don't want it!"

"You don't want—"

"That's beside the point." He spun around, hoping to gain enough breath to calm his racing heart but his heart only darkened when he noticed the amount of attention from the audience –the _male_ audience—that they were receiving.

"Then what… what's your point?"

"My point is," he stated, emphatically. His voiced might have broken then, so restrained was it, but determination kept it strong. "That you will not go out with any boys."

She snapped from her slight trance, her face glowing red and her heart glowing an emotion that was stuck in between hope and down right offence.

"_I_ will not go out with any boys?" Decibels reached dangerously for a 120 dBA.

"That's right." His hands came up to rub his face before deciding against it, his thoughts whirling around all at once. "No boys."

"And just what," she steamed, "makes you think you can order me around, discuss my skirts and tell me I can't date?" In every respect her tone conveyed a challenge, and really disguised the sincerity of the question.

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Be. Cause!"

She stomped her foot, livid. "Be. Cause. _Why_?"

"Because love is crazy like that!"

Silence. Everybody knew that it could be so loud at times, enough to strain your ears and pull at your soul. However, in the most momentous of times when it seemed as if your life was just about to be spun out of order, it could just simply be…silent.

And it was.

Until she said, "pardon?"

He slowly turned back to her that one last time in the one odd day, with his face set in stone and his body more rigid, more commanding, than the bravest of heroes. It was that one last stance that gave every being in the building that day a sense of danger. Everyone, that is, except for the bright eyed girl who stood not two feet from him and felt only his presence.

He eyed her for a moment, the furious blue of his eyes suddenly fading to a twinkling midnight, his shoulders dropping from the rigid state they'd been in, yet still set in forced confidence.

He walked to her, the whole two feet it took to break their gap, and touched her chin enough to make sure her eyes stayed steady on his willingly. Doing so, he let his head drop an inch, and then two, closer to hers. "I suppose now is as good a time as any," his thumb rubbed over her lips, "to inform you, finally," his hair brushed hers, intermingling, "that I just think it might be detrimental," his voiced dropped to a whisper soft, "to the wandering male eyes, should you," his nose pressed against hers, rubbed, "decide to wear a," his breath wafted like feathers on her lips. He tasted of chocolate. "Short skirt."

They remained in that position. Just for an eternity and in the blink of an eye before he managed to pull himself away, yet not quite managing to let go of her chin.

"Because love is crazy like that."

With that he sauntered out, as if it were any other day of any other week.

"Wow."

Usagi looked down, a bit dazedly, at Rei who kept her eyes on the exit doors. Bit by bit, the raven-haired priestess turned her head to the befuddled blonde.

"I didn't know Mamoru was so passionate about table legs."

Usagi blinked.

"Or table skirts for that matter," Minako put in, flipping the cover of the magazine over.

"I told you, Rei," Makoto said as Usagi melted back into her seat, flushed along with the sun and moon in her eyes, "men go absolutely crazy over antique table magazines."

End.

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><p><em>AN: Erm, idea, you ask? This one just came from this past week, whilst my friends and I were sitting at a table discussing table skirts when an acquaintance thought we were discussing female skirts. He wasn't opposed to see-through skirts, by the way. Not even a little bit like our good Mamo-chan.<em>


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